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Oh, come on. Typical engineering centric view of the world. People don't care or understand that HSPA was just a protocol extension to 3G and therefore didn't d

Oh, come on. Typical engineering centric view of the world. People don't care or understand that HSPA was just a protocol extension to 3G and therefore didn't deserve to be called 4G. I don't even really care. Marketing is just marketing. It's the company communicating with customers about their products and services and how they're running their business. If calling these technology improvements 5G helps AT&T invest more in their network, I'm all for that. I get 200 mbps download speeds on my iPhone in San Francisco, near Fisherman's Wharf (insanely crowded tourist area). I don't know what the technology they're using to get it to work, but if they want to call it 6G or 7G I don't really care, as long as they continue to invest in it and improve it. For those curious, on the marketing page for their 5G plan, AT&T says these changes to the LTE network are being calling "5Ge": "How are we doing it? With enhancements like carrier aggregation to add more “lanes” to the highway that data travels on. 4x4 MIMO to double the number of antennas that can send data back and forth. And 256 QAM to make data transmission more efficient. All this adds up to faster speeds for you." https://www.att.com/5g/consumer https://www.att.com/5g/consumer

Dylan16807 8y ago
That's fine if they exist in a world all by themselves. But if that was true they wouldn't need to mislead anyone, because they'd be in charge of the names. The problems come when you need to make a comparison between different networks. "4G" means something. "5G" means something else. If you want to represent incremental improvement between the two, use a number between 4 and 5. Especially when "4G" was already being stretched down to talk about lower performance than it should have been.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  It reminds me of the days of CDROM speeds: 2X, 3X, 4X, etc. At one point the number before the X was related to the device’s actual data throughput, until the marketers took over, and they changed what it meant, and then it just turned into a number arms race. I think I remember seeing something labeled 72X. Most customers don’t know what a G is or why he wants 4 or 5 of them. They think a “bar” is a unit of signal strength measurement. Since there is no regulatory reason to be truthful, it’s inevitable that companies are going to start inflating the numbers.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    The X was always the [maximum] speed you could read a drive, not a fake number. Drives went up to 56x by spinning the disc over twenty times faster than a CD player. (With the outer edge being 2.5 times faster than the inner edge.) The 72x drive had especially interesting tech, using 7 beams so that it only had to spin 5-10 times faster. It also had a significantly better minimum speed of about 44x.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > "4G" means something. "5G" means something else. Except it's not that simple. LTE and 5G-NR (New Radio) are continuing on parallel development tracks, with important features getting "backported" into LTE. You could build an LTE Advanced Pro network with all the fixings that would be faster than a barebones 5G-NR network. If you want to be technically precise, refer to whatever 3GPP release you mean. Once you're using "4G" and "5G" you're already in fuzzy marketing land.
akira2501 8y ago
> but if they want to call it 6G or 7G I don't really care, As someone who never buys phones from their carrier, I _do_ actually care. Accurate labeling of your standards is a requirement in this marketplace, I feel. > AT&T says these changes to the LTE network are being calling "5Ge": Which is, to me, intentionally dishonest. It's 4G+, if anything.
metaphor 8y ago
Typical marketing bullshit. The definition of 5G is steered by a globally recognized technical authority, and when they issue press releases[1] which are in turn reissued by media agencies informing the general public of what to expect, AT&T doesn't do anyone other than themselves a favor by introducing "5Ge" marketing bullshit knowing very well that average Joe User will simply dismiss the deemphasized "e", and doesn't have the technical means of independent verification in any case. The problem is AT&T wants to have their cake and eat it too: they're trying to normalize an ignorant public to 4G tech by obfuscating the market with a false perception that their networks are on the bleeding edge of standards integration. Through my eyes, the confusion such practices illicit are not unlike the damage caused by trademark infringement. [1] https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/2017-PR04.aspx https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/2017-PR04.aspx
- rayiner 8y ago
  ITU doesn't make the standards, why should they get to decide what's "4G" and "5G" etc.? "5Ge" is a label for a real thing in wireless technology--a parallel evolution of LTE that overlaps in technology and speed with 3GPP's 5G-NR standard. 3GPP (the folks that actually make the standards) are pushing a parallel evolution of LTE and 5G-NR into the "5G era." LTE will get technologies that will also show up in 5G-NR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced_Pro.
  - metaphor 8y ago
    Because they're the overarching publisher of a international telecom performance specification for which 3GPP's 5G NR is a prospective candidate. Your question strikes me as akin to justifying why organizations like ANSI, DIN, et al exist. That "5Ge" is a label for a real thing (however way you've chosen to define that) doesn't make it technically unencumbered. That we're quoting "5Ge" speaks for itself; I'd imagine an objective of ITU specifications would be to eliminate such marketing bullshit and public misdirection.
    - rayiner 8y ago

Dylan16807 8y ago

That's fine if they exist in a world all by themselves. But if that was true they wouldn't need to mislead anyone, because they'd be in charge of the names. The problems come when you need to make a comparison between different networks. "4G" means something. "5G" means something else. If you want to represent incremental improvement between the two, use a number between 4 and 5. Especially when "4G" was already being stretched down to talk about lower performance than it should have been.

ryandrake 8y ago
It reminds me of the days of CDROM speeds: 2X, 3X, 4X, etc. At one point the number before the X was related to the device’s actual data throughput, until the marketers took over, and they changed what it meant, and then it just turned into a number arms race. I think I remember seeing something labeled 72X. Most customers don’t know what a G is or why he wants 4 or 5 of them. They think a “bar” is a unit of signal strength measurement. Since there is no regulatory reason to be truthful, it’s inevitable that companies are going to start inflating the numbers.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  The X was always the [maximum] speed you could read a drive, not a fake number. Drives went up to 56x by spinning the disc over twenty times faster than a CD player. (With the outer edge being 2.5 times faster than the inner edge.) The 72x drive had especially interesting tech, using 7 beams so that it only had to spin 5-10 times faster. It also had a significantly better minimum speed of about 44x.
rayiner 8y ago
> "4G" means something. "5G" means something else. Except it's not that simple. LTE and 5G-NR (New Radio) are continuing on parallel development tracks, with important features getting "backported" into LTE. You could build an LTE Advanced Pro network with all the fixings that would be faster than a barebones 5G-NR network. If you want to be technically precise, refer to whatever 3GPP release you mean. Once you're using "4G" and "5G" you're already in fuzzy marketing land.

akira2501 8y ago

> but if they want to call it 6G or 7G I don't really care, As someone who never buys phones from their carrier, I _do_ actually care. Accurate labeling of your standards is a requirement in this marketplace, I feel. > AT&T says these changes to the LTE network are being calling "5Ge": Which is, to me, intentionally dishonest. It's 4G+, if anything.

metaphor 8y ago

Typical marketing bullshit. The definition of 5G is steered by a globally recognized technical authority, and when they issue press releases[1] which are in turn reissued by media agencies informing the general public of what to expect, AT&T doesn't do anyone other than themselves a favor by introducing "5Ge" marketing bullshit knowing very well that average Joe User will simply dismiss the deemphasized "e", and doesn't have the technical means of independent verification in any case. The problem is AT&T wants to have their cake and eat it too: they're trying to normalize an ignorant public to 4G tech by obfuscating the market with a false perception that their networks are on the bleeding edge of standards integration. Through my eyes, the confusion such practices illicit are not unlike the damage caused by trademark infringement. [1] https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/2017-PR04.aspx https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/2017-PR04.aspx

rayiner 8y ago
ITU doesn't make the standards, why should they get to decide what's "4G" and "5G" etc.? "5Ge" is a label for a real thing in wireless technology--a parallel evolution of LTE that overlaps in technology and speed with 3GPP's 5G-NR standard. 3GPP (the folks that actually make the standards) are pushing a parallel evolution of LTE and 5G-NR into the "5G era." LTE will get technologies that will also show up in 5G-NR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced_Pro.
- metaphor 8y ago
  Because they're the overarching publisher of a international telecom performance specification for which 3GPP's 5G NR is a prospective candidate. Your question strikes me as akin to justifying why organizations like ANSI, DIN, et al exist. That "5Ge" is a label for a real thing (however way you've chosen to define that) doesn't make it technically unencumbered. That we're quoting "5Ge" speaks for itself; I'd imagine an objective of ITU specifications would be to eliminate such marketing bullshit and public misdirection.
  - rayiner 8y ago